"Incorrect Diet - Medicine of no use. Correct diet - Medicine not needed." Old Ayurvedic saying
Warning! I'm in a high dudgeon. About the kids in Crete who are eschewing their uber-healthy Mediterranean diet for fast food and are becoming fat and unhealthy due to the encroachment of pizza restaurants, ice cream parlors and soda machines.(New York Times, Wednesday, September 14, 2008) Yes, the golden arches and the sombrero are now in Greece and Crete, the birthplace of longevity, olive oil, fresh produce and fish. I'm not upset just about the kids in Crete , but the kids here in America - how about kids everywhere? - becoming obese, losing IQ points and becoming hyperactive insomniacs. Fast food and video games - the scourge and eventual downfall of today's youth. Sadly, it's not the kids' fault. It's the parents' fault. - both here in America and in Crete . It's the parents' responsibility to not give in to the wheedling and the begging for the Big Mac, large fries and vanilla shake.
Fast food restaurants kind of "just happened" didn't they? First there was just one McDonalds opened by an entrepreneur named Ray Krok - I think in Cleveland in the late 50's - and heralded as the next best thing to hiring a home chef to cook your dinner every night. The women's movement and the fast food movement were born together: Moms were just entering the workplace and upon exchanging their aprons for panty hose, they felt the need for some extra help in the kitchen. And just how perfect was it to pick up an extra large container of Kentucky Fried on the way home? Way back when, women were not only bringing in extra cash for their families, but still taking care of 100% of the household duties. It's just the way it was.
The flavors of fast food - due to MSG and other additives - are first of all - seductive and secondly, addictive. The world is also very high-speed with a spacious bandwidth now, too. More and more Moms are working (over 75%) and seem to be unwilling (or too tired?) to 1) discipline and make the "no, you can't. . . " stick - they have that deadline on their minds - and 2) to spend the hour or two extra per week that it takes to plan and prepare good, healthy meals and to freeze them in family-sized portions. Moms embrace the concept of fast food because it makes their life easier, and before anyone realizes it the kids are addicted. Then little Suzie or Sam whines and pouts or refuses to eat good healthy food and it becomes easier to give them what they want and then we have addicted, fat, pre-diabetic kids with behavior problems whose amygdala has been sensitized to the lure of meth and crack just as they are entering the teen years.
The UN said this summer that the "region's (meaning Crete and Greece) diet has decayed into a moribund state." Now, "moribund" as you know, mean's "nearly dead" and to me this is not an exaggeration. Because the kids of today, here and in Crete probably won't live as long as we will because our Mom's raised us pre-fast foods, the soil was better and hence the broccoli more nutritious. It is theorized that even the best, organic broccoli grown today has 50% less nutrition than the broccoli I ate as a kid. We can blame it on the depleted soil along with Monsanto et al putting junk pesticides in the soil and dabbling in genetically modified Franken foods
"Their diet is totally different than ours was." said Soula Sfakianakis, 40, recalling breakfasts of goat milk, bread and honey. Her son, Vassilis, a husky 9 year old who had a chocolate mustache from a recently conquered ice cream cone, said he preferred cornflakes in the morning and steak or macaroni and cheese for dinner." Hel-lo! This helpless attitude of Mom really irritates me. Who buys the mac and cheese? Who buys the cornflakes? Why isn't there any goat yogurt and whole grain bread in the house?
The WHO found last year that 35.2 % of children in Spain in third grade were overweight; 31.5% overweight in Portugal. The lowest rates were in Slovakia (15.2%), France (18.1), Switzerland (18.3%) I'd like to know how many McDs there are in Slovakia . The parental thing in France is different and children are raised with excellent food from day one. In this respect the famous condescension of the French extends to their food which is a good thing. As for Switzerland - well, it's fairly Germanic in the demand for obedience and whatever Mom says, goes, without a whine in the bunch.
"We ate what we grew and what we could make from it," said Eleni Klouvidaki, 26, who lives in Kalidonia a mountain village in Crete . She describes her preferred diet as "whatever's green", so in a typical day she might have a meal of zucchini, tomatoes and other vegetables tossed in homemade olive oil. Now and again she augments with beans or a fresh-caught rabbit.
I'm not asking you Moms to go out and shoot, skin and boil Thumper, but I am asking you to take a look at what you are feeding your kids. The importance of early childhood nutrition is tricky to prove, because usually you won't run into big trouble while they are still living at home. Kids are innately healthy and resilient given half the chance. But, all hell may break loose when they become adults; they could become obese, diabetic or they may tragically pre-decease you from something unexpected like a heart attack or cancer. I think that we as parents are responsible for setting the stage for our children's futures. It depends on us: Will they succeed as parents and partners? How much energy will they have to do what they love to do? By being conscious as parents and feeding them good food, we can grant them their God-given right to a healthy longevity where they will "live long and die short."
It's really quite easy: Just don't offer bad food. Don't even have it in the house. Don't make McDonalds a "treat." Don't have sugar of any kind in the house. Don't respond to pouting and crying and asking for something else for dinner. Let them go to bed without eating the healthy meal that you are serving - they will eat the salad, rice and chicken breast when they are hungry enough. If they are hungry enough they will even eat kale! Remember who the adult is in the house. Say no and mean it.
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